Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, May 27, 2017

B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 27, 2017 OPINION: LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, May 27, 2017 OPINION: LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 
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DICK POLMAN 



YET ANOTHER IMPEACHABLE 
OFFENSE 

Forgive my frequent references to Richard Nixon. It’s just eeriehow his impeachable behavior is being replicated by the current 
con man. As Yogi Berra reputedly said, “It’s like déjà vu all over 
again.”
For instance: When Nixon decided to thwart the FBI’s probeof Watergate, he farmed out the job to his top henchman, H.R.

Haldeman. On June 23, 1972 - forever memorialized on an Oval Office tape - Nixondecreed that the CIA should tell the FBI to lay off. He told Haldeman to set up aCIA meeting, and he said: “They should call the FBI in and say that ‘We wish for thecountry, don’t go any further into this case, period.’”
That was obstruction of justice. The only difference today is that Donald Trump didn’tfarm out his obstruction job to anybody. He did it all by himself. In accordance withhis motto, as articulated during his 2016 Republican convention speech: “I alone.”
During a meeting on Feb. 14 - according to James Comey’s contemporaneous memo-Trump ordered Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions to leave the room so that he could speakto the FBI director alone. As Comey later wrote, in a memo shared with associates atthe time, Trump asked Comey to drop the FBI probe of paid Russian propagandistMichael Flynn: “I hope you can see your way clear of letting this go, to letting Flynngo. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
After this bombshell exploded, the Trump team predictably insisted that the memowasn’t “truthful or accurate.” Decide for yourself who to believe: Comey (who hasbeen writing detailed contemporaneous memos for years), or the sociopathic liar whoapparently cleared the room because he didn’t want any witnesses.
If you believe Comey - whose memo will inevitably go public - then you’ll surely beinterested in 18 U.S. Code Section 1505, which deals with “Obstruction of proceedingbefore departments, agencies, and committees.” The key passage:
“Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter ofcommunication, influences, obstructs, impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct,
or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pendingproceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States” isguilty of obstructing justice. (Emphasis mine.) 

SINCE DAY ONE, TRUMP HAS HURTHIMSELF 

If I were Donald Trump’s chief of staff, I’d just break his thumbs. 


That’s what Reince Priebus should do – and then maybe buy a roll of duct tape. 


From Day One of his administration, President Trump has hurt himself and his agenda
by doing a lot of stuff that is absolutely stupid.
Does anyone think it was Priebus who was telling Trump to fire FBI Director James
Comey? 


Or telling him, “While you’re at it, Mr. President, why don’t you undermine your staff
and the VP of the United States for a second time.” 
What the president desperately needs is an adult in the Oval Office who will stand up
to him -- and that he will listen to. Maybe it has to be Jared Kushner, because Trump
can’t fire his son in law. 


Otherwise it’s going to take someone on his staff with the highest authority – maybe
Priebus – to stand up and publicly say, “Unless this chaos ends, Mr. President, I’m
going to resign.” 


Until something shocking like that happens to wake up President Trump, or until he is
tied up and sedated by his staff, his administration will be constantly under siege from
the left and the fake journalists in the media.
We all know why the liberal Democrats in Washington, Hollywood and the news
media hate Trump.
They didn’t want him to be president. They all voted for Queen Hillary and since last
November they’ve all been feeling somewhere between sad and suicidal.
So now you have them trying everything they can every day to get rid of President
Trump. 


But are they really so stupid that they don’t realize yet that even if Trump goes down
they still aren’t going to get their President Hillary?
Do they realize they’re going to get President Mike – a savvy, competent, principled 


After the Comey memo hit, virtually all the Republicans went AWOL. Fox News wasso devoid of Trump defenders that it felt compelled to ignore the story entirely - optinginstead to run giant headlines about the Clinton Foundation (I kid you not) and thebreathtaking news that Tim Allen’s TV show had been cancelled.
Perhaps the Republicans are beginning to realize that they’ve lashed themselves to asinking ship. One Republican lawmaker privately told a CNN reporter on Tuesdaynight that the reaction among his colleagues to the Comey news is “Wide-eyed andWTF.” 
Jimmy Gurulé, a Notre Dame law professor, former assistant attorney general underGeorge H.W. Bush, and an ex-Treasury undersecretary for enforcement under George

W. Bush, says, “If the [Comey] allegations are true, President Trump has committed aserious federal crime.” Myra Adams, a McCain campaign aide in ‘08 and a Bush aidein ‘04, says, “Grounds for impeachment are defined by whatever the political marketwill bear. At this writing, one wonders just how much more the political market willbear after only four months of President Trump, and I say this after voting for him!”
And commentator David Gergen, who advised three Republican 
presidents (including Nixon), connected he dots on CNN, saying, “I 
think we’re in impeachment territory now for the first time ... It looks like[Trump] was trying to impede the investigation. He was using his power to do that,
and when James Comey didn’t go along with him, when he wasn’t his boy, he firedhim.” 
The GOP’s current fig-leaf defense is basically, “We don’t yet know 
if this Comey memo is real.” Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House 
Oversight Committee, is threatening to subpoena it. (Chaffetz, in his 
“request” letter to the FBI: “If true, these memoranda raise questions as to whether thepresident attempted to influence or impede the investigation.”) But the big question iswhat the Republicans will do if or when they actually see the memo. Will they finallystand up for America and fulfill the oath they took to defend it?
“This is no longer about Trump. We know what he is,” said former Bush speechwriterDavid Frum. “It’s about Congress and specifically Republicans in Congress. Who arethey?” 
——Dick 
Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia(newsworks.org/polman) and a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania.
Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. 
MAKING SENSE byMICHAEL REAGAN 

conservative who won’t shoot himself in both feet every day? 

A President Pence who will be able to work with a RepublicanCongress to get all the things done that Trump promised butcan’t deliver – tax reform, immigration reform, healthcarereform and more? 


We know the attacks of the Hysterical Left will never stop until Trump is impeachedor driven from office. 
But despite the apoplectic editors at the New York Times and the Washington Postand the drooling leftwing anchors and pundits at MSNBC/CNN, President Trump hasdone nothing yet to be impeached for.
It won’t matter what James Comey says the president asked him to do regarding theFBI’s investigation into the alleged Russian-Trump collusion to prevent the coronationof Queen Hillary, for which there still is no evidence. 

What Trump may or may not have said to Comey rises to thelevel of stupidity, but it doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.
And the classified information Trump supposedly gave to the Russians in the WhiteHouse about the fight against terrorists was no different from what President Obamagave to the Russians concerning the terrorists in Syria.
Re 
member when Rachel Maddow and the Washington Post editorial page went apoplecticafter Obama divulged secrets to the Russkies? Neither do I.
President Trump has been, is and always will be the source of the chaos. He’s not incharge of a business anymore, he’s in charge of an administration.
If he keeps going down the crazy road he’s on with these stupid childish tweets and thestatements he makes, Republicans will lose control of the House and Senate and anychance for tax reform, immigrationreform and health care reform.
And then America isn’t going to be great again. It’s going to be bad again. 
—— 
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a politicalconsultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). 


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